Part 57 (2/2)

[646] See on this subject the letter of the Marquis Maffei, which follows.

[647] St. Thomas, i. part 9, 89, art. 8, ad. 2.

[648] The author had foreseen this objection from the beginning of his dissertation.

[649] Aug. Serm. de Semp. 197.

[650] John xvi. 11.

[651] Luke xxii. 31.

[652] 2 Cor. xi. 7.

[653] 1 Tim. i. 2.

[654] 1 Cor. xi. 30.

[655] 2 Cor. ii. 11, and xi. 14.

[656] 2 Thess. ii.

[657] 1 Pet. v. 8.

[658] Ephes. vi. 12.

[659] They are cited in the letter of the Marquis Maffei.

[660] The author, as we may see, is not a Cartesian, since he a.s.signs reflection even to animals. But if they reflect, they choose; whence it consequently follows that they are free.

[661] Luke xiii. 14.

CHAPTER LXIII.

DISSERTATION BY AN ANONYMOUS WRITER.

_Answer to a Letter on the subject of the Apparition of St. Maur._

”You have been before me, sir, respecting the spirit of St. Maur, which causes so much conversation at Paris; for I had resolved to send you a short detail of that event, in order that you might impart to me your reflections on a matter so delicate and so interesting to all Paris. But since you have read an account of it, I cannot understand why you have hesitated a moment to decide what you ought to think of it. What you do me the honor to tell me, that you have suspended your judgment of the case until I have informed you of mine, does me too much honor for me to be persuaded of it; and I think there is more probability in believing that it is a trick you are playing me, to see how I shall extricate myself from such slippery ground. Nevertheless, I cannot resist the entreaties, or rather the orders, with which your letter is filled; and I prefer to expose myself to the pleasantry of the free thinkers, or the reproaches of the credulous, than the anger of those with which I am threatened by yourself.

”You ask if I believe that spirits come back, and if the circ.u.mstance which occurred at St. Maur can be attributed to one of those incorporeal substances?

”To answer your two questions in the same order that you propose them to me, I must first tell you, that the ancient heathens acknowledge various kinds of spirits, which they called _lares_, _larvae_, _lemures_, _genii_, _manes_.

”For ourselves, without pausing at the folly of our cabalistic philosophers, who fancy spirits in every element, calling those sylphs which they pretend to inhabit the air; _gnomes_, those which they feign to be under the earth; _ondines_, those which dwell in the water; and _salamanders_, those of fire; we acknowledge but three sorts of created spirits, namely, angels, demons, and the souls which G.o.d has united to our bodies, and which are separated from them by death.

”The Holy Scriptures speak in too many places of the apparitions of the angels to Abraham, Jacob, Tobit, and several other holy patriarchs and prophets, for us to doubt of it. Besides, as their name signifies their ministry, being created by G.o.d to be his messengers, and to execute his commands, it is easy to believe that they have often appeared visibly to men, to announce to them the will of the Almighty.

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